Piglet Race
By Laremy Lee
For all my piglet children.
I see you all bounding toward me
with the innocence of bacon,
the look in your eyes squealing:
in another life, I could’ve been char siew.
Your heads held up in earnest,
your snouts pointed to the sky,
you radiate pink with promise and youth
as you race toward the future, on a path
you’ve often been prodded along.
Remember, though, before I let you go:
life must be as easy as a piglet race
but not as simple as one.
Fly like the wind. Leap
as high as you can, over
hurdles set out like nets.
Look cute while doing so.
But wait for fellow piglets if
they pause. Help them if they falter.
We are as much competitors
as we are comrades-in-trotters.
Fortunately (or unfortunately),
like Fleance, you will soon flee
leaving me behind as Time flies
to pick my pocket once again,
as it did me when I was a piglet like you;
as it will you when you are a boar like me.
Another set of piglets will round the bend,
bounding toward me with all their might,
even going so far as to – who knows? –
one day, also bound toward you,
till your heart beams and your smile says,
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
First published in Goh, W., Lee, A. and Lee, W. F., eds. Ceriph (Issue Five). Singapore: Ceriph, 2012. 83. Print.